


A Memory Missing

by writerbot5000



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alex Danvers Doesn't Know Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, F/F, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Light Angst, Mostly Zany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbot5000/pseuds/writerbot5000
Summary: Alex walks in on Supergirl kissing Lena. Which wouldn't be a problem except that Lena is Kara's girlfriend and, thanks to the mind wipe, Alex doesn't know that Kara is Supergirl. Things  kind of go off the rails from there.





	1. Really Should have Locked that Door

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts at the end of 4x17, All About Eve. Mostly canon compliant other than Kara and Lena being in an established relationship and Lena knowing Kara's identity.

“Hey, Lena. I forgot my pho…” Alex trailed off, shock on her face. “What the hell is going on here?” Alex demanded, the shock on her face quickly giving way to fury.

Kara jumped off the couch and out of Lena’s arms. Oh Rao, this was bad. This wasn’t the first time that Alex had walked in on Kara and her girlfriend sharing an intimate moment. She had walked in on more than a few compromising situations over the last couple years, and at least they were both fully clothed this time. The problem was this was the first time Alex had done so when Kara was dressed as Supergirl since the DEO agent’s mind had been wiped. She didn’t know Kara and Supergirl were one and the same. As far as Alex knew, she had just got Kara’s girlfriend making out with another woman.

“Agent Danvers!” Kara exclaimed, frantically trying to think of a plausible reason why she had been mounted astride Lena’s lap and kissing the CEO when Alex had re-entered the apartment. “We were… uh… It’s not what it looks like?”

“Really?” Alex asked. “So I didn’t just catch you kissing my sister’s girlfriend?”   
“No?” the hero responded, the uncertainty in her tone, clear even to herself. Not unsurprisingly, her sister seemed unconvinced by her denial. 

“I can’t believe you would do this to Kara! You’re supposed to be her friend!” Alex shouted, slipping into what Kara normally referred to as Scary Alex mode. “Turns out I don’t know you as well as I thought. If you’re capable of betraying a friend like this, it makes me wonder if you what else you might be capable of. Maybe you really were behind the attack on the White House.”

“And you!” Alex yelled, rounding on Lena, who was still sitting on the couch, looking just as scared as Kara felt. “Last week you take me to help you find a ring for Kara and now I find out you are cheating on her? You disgust me. You really are just another Luthor!”

Okay, Kara was definitely going to have circle back to that ring comment later, but for now, she knew she had to act before Alex did anymore damage to her friendship with Lena in her attempts to defend Kara from herself. Alex had been suspicious of Lena’s intentions when Kara had first befriended and then fallen in love with the CEO, but once Alex accepted that Lena was who she said she was, the two had become really close friends. Kara couldn’t let a misunderstanding destroy that friendship.

There was only one way out of this situation that saved Alex and Lena’s friendship and ensured that the DEO director didn’t try to arrest Supergirl (or worse). Sighing, Kara pulled her hair up into a ponytail and slid on her glasses. “It’s me, Alex.”

The anger on Alex’s face gave way to confusion. “Kara?”

“Yeah,” Kara nodded.

“Why are you dressed as Supergirl?” Alex asked. “Wait, is this like… a sex thing?”

“What? No!” the hero protested. Not that Lena hadn’t asked her to wear the suit in the bedroom from time to time, but tonight this had simply been what she was wearing when Alex had left the apartment.

“Then why are you wearing a Supergirl costume?” Alex asked, arching an eyebrow. “A bit early for Halloween.”

Despite how embarrassing it would be, Kara actually briefly debated claiming that it was a sex thing, but she really didn’t want to have that conservation with her sister. Besides, ever since Alex had volunteered to have her mind wiped to protect Kara’s identity, their relationship wasn’t what it should be. She hated lying to Alex about who she was. She hated they didn’t have each other’s backs the way they used to. But with Lex Luthor out there and everything that was going on, they needed to be able to count on each other. She needed to tell her sister the truth.

“Because I am Supergirl,” Kara admitted.

The director scrunched up her face. “Oh, god it is a sex thing! I didn’t need to know that! Why can’t you be better at lying?”

“It’s not a sex thing!” Kara insisted. “I really am her.”

Alex chuckled in disbelief. “You refuse to watch _Jurassic Park_ because it’s too scary and you expect me to believe you’re a superhero?” 

“Velociraptors are creepy, okay?” Kara protested, shuddering as she pictured their creepy little claws. “And I can prove it to you.”

Following her words with action, Kara hovered a few feet up in the air.

Like a switch had been flipped, the mixture of amusement and embarrassment was gone and Alex’s face was cold and hard. The woman was suddenly brandishing her pistol and pointing it at the now floating heroine. “Are you threatening me, Supergirl?”

“Alex, it’s me!” Kara protested.

“I know who you are, Supergirl,” Alex snarled, disgust in her voice. “But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to ruin my sister’s life.”

Pointing at the glasses she was still wearing, she said. “I’m still me. It’s Kara!”

“You must think I’m stupid,” the woman responded. “You’re not Kara. I know my own sister.”

“You thought I was Kara just a minute ago,” Kara pointed out.

“What are you talking about?” Alex asked, a hint of confusion appearing on her face.

Kara spared a glance for her girlfriend, but the other woman seemed just as confused as she was at this latest turn of events. “Okay, fine,” Kara agreed, not sure why Alex couldn’t recognize her, but figuring it was better than trying to argue. “I’ll go get Kara. She’ll be right here.”

“I’m not going to lie to her about what I saw,” Alex insisted. “I’m not going to let you and Luthor get away with your little tryst behind my sister’s back.”

“That’s fine. Apparently, she can explain it better than me.” With that Kara, opened the balcony doors and flew out of sight. She flew back in through the bedroom window, grabbed a change of clothes and then, after waiting a couple minutes so that ‘Supergirl’ would have time to go get her from her own apartment and return, Kara touched back down on the balcony and re-entered.

“Uh, hey, Alex. Supergirl dropped me off,” Kara started to explain as she walked back into the apartment. “I know what you say was probably—” Immediately the gun was back in her face.

“Where’s my sister? Why are you wearing her clothes” Alex demanded, her voice cold and threatening. Somehow even more dangerous than it had been before Kara had left and come back.  

“Alex, it’s me. Kara. Your sister,” Kara explained again. “Supergirl dropped me off. She wanted me to talk to you.”

Alex responded by flicking the safety off on her gun. “What the hell did you do to my sister? If you hurt her…”

The superhero took a quick self-inventory and confirmed she was wearing her glasses, her hair was up and she was wearing one of her favorite sweaters. In fact, it was one that Alex had given her for her Christmas last year. She was definitely in full ‘Kara Danvers’ mode.

“I’m fine,” Kara attempted to reassure.

Alex scoffed, fire burning in her eyes. “You seriously think you can just dress up like my sister and I’ll think you are her! I don’t know what stunt you are trying to pull, but if you harmed one hair on Kara’s head, Ben Lockwood and Lex Luthor will be the least of your worries.”

Speaking for the first time since Alex had re-entered the apartment, Lena said, “Supergirl, I think we need to tell your sister the truth. Can I talk to you for a moment. In private?” Kara wasn’t sure what ‘the truth’ was but hopefully Lena had an idea to get them out of this mess because Kara had no idea what was going on and she was more than a little worried that Alex might have access to Kryptonite.

“And I’m supposed to just stand here while you two concoct some elaborate lie?” Alex asked, arching an eyebrow at them.  

“Agent Danvers,” Supergirl implored, “I know that this looks bad. Very bad. And I can understand why you don’t know if you can trust me right now, but we’ve worked together for years. We’ve faced down countless threats together, saved the city and even the entire planet on more than one occasion. You’ve saved my life multiple times and I’ve done the same for you. So I’m asking you to please give me a moment to talk to Le— Miss Luthor and then I promise we’ll explain everything.” Or at least Kara hoped that they would be able to. Rao, she really hoped Lena had an idea what was happening right now.

For a very long moment, it seemed like her sister might not answer her request, but to Kara’s relief, the woman breathed a sigh and said, “Fine. You’ve got five minutes.”

“Thank you,” Kara answered, glad that even with her memory altered and in light of the apparent damning evidence against her, Kara could still count on her sister to do the right thing.

Even though the bedroom was closer, Lena lead them into her home office; Lena probably figured that Alex wouldn’t be too appreciative of Lena leading ‘Supergirl’ into her bedroom right about now.

As soon as Lena closed the door to her office, Kara asked, “What’s going on with her, Lee? Why doesn’t she believe me?”

“It’s got to be connected to what J’onn did to her memories,” Lena reasoned. “When her mind was first wiped, I wondered how she didn’t figure out your secret identity almost instantly. Agent Danvers is an intelligent, observant and highly trained employee of a secret government organization. She was interacting with you as Supergirl and you as Kara Danvers on an almost daily basis. There’s no way that she wouldn’t recognize her own sister, no matter how you were dressed.”

Under other circumstances, Kara would have defended her ability to disguise her identity, but right now she was too busy worrying about her sister. “So what are you saying?”

“I think when J’onn wiped her mind, he must have created some sort of mental block that keeps her from connecting the dots between Kara Danvers and Supergirl,” the CEO mused.

“But why does she still think I’m Supergirl even when I’m back in my normal clothes?”

“She had no trouble seeing you as Supergirl when she first came in,” Lena explained. “And when you put on your glasses and put your hair in a ponytail, she accepted that. I think in her mind it made more sense that you were wearing a Supergirl costume than that I would be cheating on you with Supergirl. But then she saw Kara you using superpowers and so the only way her mind could explain it away was to decide you weren’t Kara after all. So now when she sees you...”

“She can only see Supergirl!” Oh, Rao. This was bad. “She can’t see me as Kara anymore?” Kara could feel herself beginning to panic. She had hated the idea of Alex not trusting Supergirl, but if Alex couldn’t see her as Kara, she really would lose her sister.

Obviously sensing her girlfriend’s panic, Lena reached out and took hold of Kara’s arms, rubbing up and down in a soothing motion. “It’s going to be okay, darling. If this is because of J’onn mind wipe, then we just need him to undo it. Why don’t you give him a call? He should be able to fix this.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Kara admitted. “I was trying to call him earlier and he’s not answering his cell phone. I went by his office earlier and he had posted a note in the door saying he had to leave town for a bit. I don’t know where he went! For all I know, he’s not even on this planet anymore!”

At that very moment, Kara’s phone started to ring. It was her Supergirl phone that only her friends had access to so she had a split-second of hope that J’onn was calling her back. A quick look at the screen though revealed it to be Brainy calling. Kara was tempted to ignore it, but she knew if Brainy was calling, it might be because there was a problem that required Supergirl somewhere in National City. Even with this mess on her hands, she couldn’t ignore a potential emergency.

“Brainy, I hope this is important because I’m kind of in the middle of something right now,” Kara snapped, before instantly feeling bad about taking her frustration out on her friend.

“I assure you Supergirl, this is a matter of great urgency,” Brainy’s voice answered on the other end of the phone. “Approximately two minutes and twenty-one seconds ago, the DEO received a text message from Director Danvers. She has requested a DEO strike team be dispatched to Lena Luthor’s penthouse to apprehend Supergirl.”

Stomping back out to the living room, Kara whined, “Alex! I thought we had an understanding.”

“Our understanding went out the window the moment you tried to pass yourself off as my sister,” the woman scoffed.

Kara heaved a sigh of frustration. It was hard to be mad at Alex when, as far as she knew, she was only trying to protect her sister, but this totally sucked.


	2. Bringing in the Big Brainy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on A Memory Missing:  
> Alex 'found out' that Lena was cheating on Kara with Supergirl. Kara tried to come clean, but just made things worse and now Alex can only see Kara as Supergirl. And she's not very happy.

Now that Alex had reported her location to the DEO, Kara knew they couldn’t stay here. Lena obviously had the same thought as she piped up, “We’ll have to take Alex to my lab.”

“They probably know that you’re with me thanks to Director McTypey-Hands over there,” Kara said, gesturing to her sister. She realized that the woman was no longer holding her phone, but only because she had taken her gun out again and was brandishing it in their direction. She didn’t even have the decency to look even a little guilty about breaking her word to the hero.

“I’m afraid you and Luthor are going to have to stay right here until the DEO gets here. Then we can all sit down for a nice ‘chat.’”

“You do realize that can’t hurt me, right?” Kara asked, eyeing the gun her sister was holding. It wasn’t even her cool alien gun. Just one of the standard DEO pistols.  

“You do realize that ever since the attack on the White House,  Kryptonite bullets are standard issue now at the DEO now, right?” Alex countered. Brainy would have told her if they started arming everyone with Kryptonite bullets, right? Alex had to be bluffing. Kara was sure it was a bluff. Pretty sure.

On the off-chance that it wasn’t a lie, Kara figured it was probably best to disarm her sister. Luckily, even with the enhanced suit Winn had created for the woman, Alex didn’t have actual superpowers. And most importantly, Alex didn’t have super strength or super speed. So Kara just had to make sure Alex didn’t have a chance to shoot her.

Deciding that the best defense in this case was a good offense, Kara sped across the room, yanked her sister’s gun from her hand, grabbed the second gun she always kept in her vest, picked up her back-up pistol from her hidden ankle holder and pulled her cellphone out of her pocket. Guns and phone secured, she then slid behind the other woman and locked her arms over her head. The whole thing took less than a tenth of a second.  

“Sorry,” the hero apologized as felt her sister futilely struggle to escape the hold Kara had her in. “I really don’t want to do this. But you’d feel pretty horrible later if you shot me or you helped the DEO capture me.”

“I’m willing to take that chance,” Alex responded as she kept flailing her legs in an attempt to escape.

“Alex, you’re being really mean right now,” Kara pouted. “We’re going to go to Lena’s lab now; hopefully we can find a way to fix you there.”

“Ask Brainy to join us and bring some of his 31st century tech,” Lena added. “We’ve got some pretty advanced brain-imaging tech in one of the labs, but I doubt that something a telepath did is going to show up in an FMRI scan.”

Kara realized she hadn’t ended her call with Brainy. Kara had, in fact, dropped her phone on the ground when she had rushed out to confront her sister. She picked it back up off the ground and was relieved to see it hadn’t suffered any damage (one of the few benefits of the DEO cutting ties with her was that her Supergirl phone was now one that Lena had designed; it was much better at dealing with the wear and tear of superhero life than any of the DEO issued phones had been). The call was still active, Brainy apparently waiting patiently for Kara’s return. Kara quickly related Lena’s request to the man.

After a quick consideration, Kara decided to change back into her Supergirl outfit before flying to L-Corp. Supergirl was public enemy number one, so going out in her superhero persona was definitely a risk, but she didn’t want to risk outing her identity by flying across the city as Kara Danvers either. She also thought she might feel a little better (or at least less terrible) if Alex was glaring at Supergirl her instead of Kara her.

After changing back into her Supergirl outfit, Kara transported the group to Lena’s private lab at L-Corp. Flying with her very unhappy sister under one arm while carrying her girlfriend (who really wasn’t a fan of flying in the best of circumstances) proved to be a somewhat awkward prospect, but they managed to make their way to L-Corp without incident.

A few minutes later Brainy arrived. Kara and Lena brought him up to speed while an angry Alex muttered threats and accusations of treason.

As requested, Brainy had brought along some brain-imaging tech that he quickly integrated into an L-Corp FMRI. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Alex had no interest in submitting to any scans. When pleading and coaxing had failed, they had no choice but to restrain Alex so that Brainy could run his tests.

“Fascinating,” Brainy said, as he peered at the results of the scan. “It appears that Lena’s hypothesis is correct. J’onn telepathic mind-wipe makes it impossible for Director Danvers to see Kara and Supergirl as one person.”

“Is there any way to reverse it?” Lena asked, peering at the screens herself.

“If J’onn were here, it would be a simple matter to have him reverse the process. Without his assistance, I’m afraid it will be extremely difficult to break the block. Green Martian telepathy is incredibly powerful.”

An obvious solution came to mind for Kara, “What about that mind palace thingy you did for me when I was in a coma? Could you use that to help my sister?” Kara asked. If it was powerful enough to help Kara’s mind recover after her fight with Reign, maybe it could help here too.

“It could work,” Brainy allowed. “However, for it to work, Director Danvers will need to fully cooperate with the process. And she doesn’t seem to be in a particularly cooperative mood.”

“Yeah, I’m not about to let you bastards poke around inside my mind!” Alex spit, confirming the man’s assessment.

“Great, how are we going to get her to cooperate?” Kara despaired. If only they had realized this was going to be an issue sooner. If Supergirl had asked her sister just a few hours ago, before she had walked in Lena ‘cheating’ on Kara with Supergirl, Alex would have trusted her enough to submit to such a process. But now that she didn’t trust any of them she had no idea what they could do.

While Kara was out of ideas, fortunately her girlfriend apparently still had an idea up her sleeve. “Supergirl, I know what we have to do.”

“Great! What is it?” Kara answered, elated that she might still have a way to restore her relationship with her sister.

“Maybe here isn’t the best place to talk about it. Let’s go to the other room,” Lena said, gesturing to the small office at the back of the lab.

“Sure,” Kara said. She started walking towards the office before remembering what had happened the last time that they left her sister unsupervised. Sure, she was tied up now, but Alex was nothing if not resourceful. “Brainy, keep an eye on Director Danvers, please. We’ll be right back.”

As soon as Lena closed the door to her office, Kara asked, “Okay, what’s your big idea? Do you have some fabulous new invention that can remove undo mind-wipes?” Lena did have a history of coming up with some rather amazing tech at the drop of the hat so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“Nothing quite so grandiose as that,” Lena admitted. “You heard Brainy; he can remove the block himself if Alex lets him help her.”

“Yeah, but that’s not going to happen,” the hero answered. “She trusted Brainy before, but now she knows he’s working with us, and Alex hates both of us for what we did to me.” Rao, why did her life have to be so complicated?

“We just need someone she still trusts to convince her to cooperate,” Lena explained.

Kara sighed. “Alex isn’t really big on the whole trust thing,” Kara explained, knowing that her statement was something of an understatement. “She trusted both of us before tonight, but now she thinks we’re both horrible cheaters that hurt her baby sister. She still trusts Kara-me, but she can’t see me as me. She might trust Eliza but their relationship is pretty complicated at the best of times. She would trust Winn if he asked, but he’s stuck in the 31st century and I don’t know of any way to contact him.”

Suddenly an idea occurred to Kara, “A message in a bottle! We can write a note for Winn and then bury it somewhere so he can find it in the future! We just need to figure out somewhere that we can hide something so it won’t get found for a thousand years, but that Winn will find it in the future.”

“We could do that,” Lena allowed, “but that seems needlessly like complicated. We can just get Sam,” Lena said, already pulling out her cellphone.

“Are you sure?” Kara asked, unable to keep the skepticism from her tone. “I mean yeah, Sam and Alex are friends, but Alex thinks I’m in danger right now. Alex gets kind of intense about my safety. I don’t know if she’s going to trust the word of someone who is just a friend in a situation like this.”

“Sure, just a friend,” Lena laughed. When Kara didn’t join in her laughter, she asked, “Wait, you’re being serious? You haven’t noticed that those two are totally in love?”

“What?” Kara asked, her jaw dropping. Sam and Alex?

“And I thought it was like one of those open secret type things where we all know but we just act like we don’t,” Lena chuckled. At Kara’s pout, she added, “Sorry, darling. I just assumed you knew.”

“What’s there to pick up on?” Kara had been told time and again that she wasn’t the best on picking up on these things, but surely she would have known if her sister had feelings for someone, right?

“Well, for one,” Lena said, starting to count on her fingers, “they’re texting constantly. You can totally tell whenever Alex is texting Sam because she gets this goofy smile on her face every single time.”

Another finger was raised, “Two, whenever Alex and I talk, she always asks me how Sam is doing. Every single time.”

Lena added a third finger, “Three, back when you were off on Earth-1 a few months ago, Alex and I had a whiskey and movie night. I was a little down because I was missing you and I started talking about how I couldn’t wait to see you. Alex said she completely understood and then she started talking about how much she missed Sam. Then she told me that the two of them had been trying to line up their vacation schedules so that Alex could go visit Sam in Metropolis.”

Lena chuckled, “Apparently they never were able to find a way to make that work which may well be why,” Lena raised yet another finger, “Four, last week Sam asked me if she could transfer back to our National City offices.”

“Really?” Kara asked. “That’s great!” Even if Alex and Sam didn’t have a thing for each other, Kara would be excited to have her friend back in the city. But now that she was starting to accept Lena’s argument, she was also excited about what that could mean for Alex and Sam’s potential relationship.

“I accepted, of course. She’s actually going to be moving back here in a little over a week,” Lena raised the final finger on her hand. “Which brings me to five, Sam asked me not to tell anyone she was coming back because she said she wanted it to be a surprise. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal if she hadn’t then followed up her request by trying to casually ask me if I knew if Alex was seeing anyone.”

After hearing Lena lay everything out, it was obvious that her sister was interested in L-Corp’s CFO. It reminded Kara of a very similar conversation she had with Alex once upon a time, back when Alex’s memories were still intact, when her sister had been the one to finally sit Kara down and point out her very obvious feelings for one Lena Luthor.

“Okay, let’s give her a call,” Kara said with a nod, anxious to get her sister back.

Before Lena had a chance to actually place the call, she had a call of her own. “Yes, Jess?” Lena asked, putting her phone on speaker.

“Miss Luthor,” Jess’ voice came through the phone, “a DEO strike team just landed on the roof of the building. Eve’s headed up there to try and stall them, but I have a feeling that they aren’t going to let her demands to see a warrant and insistence on following proper sign-in procedures delay them for very long.”

Lena sighed, rubbing her temples with her free hand. “Thank you for the heads-up. I’m afraid you’ll have to cancel my meetings for the rest of the day; my guests and I will be leaving.” The one plus side of how frequently Lena was a target of Cadmus, misguided aliens and every wannabe supervillain in the city is that L-Corp had numerous secret exits that the DEO didn’t know about.

Kara wondered how the DEO had found them again. Since she had last been spotted at Lena’s penthouse, she expected that they would have turned up at L-Corp sooner or later, but they wouldn’t have sent in an aerial strike team if they didn’t know she was in the building.

The answer became clear when Supergirl turned around and looked out the small window in Lena’s office. Her sister was still in the chair where she had been restrained, but one of her hands was now free and the DEO director was currently tapping away on her phone.

“Brainy!” Kara shouted, as she stormed back into the main lab area and snatched the phone out of her sister’s hand. “Why did you give Director Danvers her phone?”

“Fear not, Supergirl,” the man answered, seemingly not at all concerned by this turn of events. “Director Danvers assured me she is only using her phone to check the score of the local baseball match.”

“Yeah, well, she lied. There’s a whole team of DEO agents on the roof; we have to go now!”

“But… but she gave me a ‘pinky swear,’” Brainy protested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So glad to see Alex finally get her memories back in canon Supergirl. Such a powerful moment on the show! 
> 
> This story was largely plotted out before that episode aired so things are going to be resolved a bit differently here, but I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Oh, almost forgot to mention, you may be wondering why Eve was there helping buy Lena and Kara time to escape. Evil Eve has turned out to be a great development on the show and Andrea Brooks has been awesome with this new incarnation of the character, but I was a big fan of the not evil version of Eve. So I decided that unless it's relevant to the plot of a story I'm writing, Eve's always been a loyal employee and friend and has never even met Lex Luthor before. Haha


	3. Back Alleys and Donut Shops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Previously on A Memory Missing:  
> Brainy confirmed Lena's theory that a telepathic block is preventing Alex from being able to see Kara as anyone other than Supergirl. Brainy's mind palace might help, but only if Alex cooperated. Lena suggested they go to Sam for help and Alex tricked Brainy so she could call in a strike team, forcing the gang to flee.

After making a hasty retreat from L-Corp, Lena and Kara had another huddled discussion (this time, in addition to having Brainy watch the woman, Kara kept her sister’s (now deactivated) phone and made sure to keep the woman in her field of view lest Alex get up to something again). It had already been after 10 when this whole mess started and it was now nearing 1 AM. Which meant that it wasn’t really surprising when they tried to call Sam that it went straight to voicemail.

L-Corp had enough facilities spread around the city that they could have gone to one of them and tried to lay low and wait for morning, but Kara knew there was no way way she was going to be able to sleep with things the way they were so she convinced Lena that the best thing to do would be for the four of them would fly to Metropolis and go to Sam directly.

Any other night and Kara would have jumped at any chance to fly with Lena, but given that Alex had proven she definitely could not be trusted not to try to either escape or signal for help, Kara opted to fly with Alex while Brainy was the one to carry Lena. As much as she wanted to be the one to hold Lena in her arms, the fear of what might happen if Alex tried to effect an escape while hundreds of feet in the air made taking Alex herself the only viable choice.

They kept Alex in the dark about their plan and the woman was confused when they arrived in Metropolis about an hour later. That confusion turned to panic however when they set down outside of Sam’s new house nestled in one of Metropolis’ suburbs.

“Please, do what you want to me,” Alex pleaded, genuine fear in her voice, “But leave Sam and Ruby out of it.”

It hurt to be the one inspiring such fear and desperation in her own sister. Kara contemplated flying them back to National City right then and there, if only to remove the fear from her sister’s face. However, unless J’onn suddenly turned up, they would just end up having to fly back here in the morning and this whole scene would play out again.

Without Sam’s help, they would have no choice but to keep Alex confined until they managed to track down J’onn to undo his mental block. Alex was a dangerous adversary at the best of times, but when she acting to protect her sister, Kara was afraid of what Alex might be capable of.  

Kara did the best to reassure her sister. “I know you have no reason to trust us right now, Director Danvers, but you know Sam and Lena are good friends and Lena just adores Ruby. I care about them too. I swear to Rao that we aren’t going to do anything bad to you, Sam or Ruby. We are just here to talk; no threats, no intimidation, no hurting anyone, just talking.”

“Okay, fine,” Alex huffed out, slumping in apparent defeat.

Kara took one step towards the front door when a idea of what was to come next flashed before the hero’s eyes: Sam, or maybe even Ruby, answering the door. Whoever answered the door being shocked to see Supergirl restraining Alex. Alex making a desperate attempt to escape Kara’s grip while warning Sam or Ruby to run. Chaos and confusion resulting. Kara had been fooled by her sister already tonight, but she wasn’t going to fall for it again.

“Nuh-uh, I’m not falling for your tricks again!” Kara protested, shaking her head. Even though Sam and Ruby knew her secret, and she was reasonably sure they wouldn’t believe she was behind the attacks on the White House, if they thought Kara had kidnapped Alex, she was worried about how everything might play out.

“Um, Lena, can you and Brainy go and explain everything to Sam first? If Alex is here, she’s definitely going to try and ‘save’ Sam from me and Sam’s going to have no idea what’s going on and everybody will start freaking out and it’ll be a whole thing.” It had been a very long day, and Kara just wanted nothing more than to be able to have her sister hug her and tell her everything would be okay. But that wasn’t going to happen until they got through this.

While Lena and Brainy headed up the front steps to brief Sam, Kara took Alex to a nearby alley. Lena would use her Supergirl watch to signal when Sam was ready for them. Right now there was nothing to do but wait.

And with nothing to do but wait, the hero desperately looked for something to do other than think about how Alex hated her right now. A twenty-four hour donut shop just across the street caught her attention and she eyed it wistfully. She could really go for a couple dozen donuts. Unfortunately, she couldn’t leave Alex unattended; if she turned her back on the woman for even a second there was no doubt that Alex would try to escape. There was also the fact that Supergirl was a wanted criminal right now and Kara hadn’t thought to bring her civilian clothes with her on this little cross-country jaunt. Maybe Lena could go get her some donuts once they sorted this whole thing out. But she really wanted them now.

Kara came up with a series of increasingly impractical plans to get donuts without being seen and without leaving Alex an opportunity to escape. As much as she wanted the donuts, she knew there was no way she could risk trying to get them, not with everything that was going on. She kept thinking about plans anyway because it gave her something to dwell on other than the fact her sister thought she was a bad person as they waited for Lena’s signal.

Kara had used every bit of the bond that Alex had developed with the Supergirl her, but it just hadn’t been enough to get her to trust her. And even worse, her sister thought she was some kind of monster that would go around kidnapping innocent reporters. Or worse! Kara did her best to fight back the tears she could feel threatening to fall.

“Jesus! I’m the prisoner here,” Alex complained. “Can you stop looking like someone stole your last hamburger? You’re making me feel bad. If anyone should be looking upset right now, it’s me! ”

“Sorry?” Kara said, feeling confused.

The DEO director sighed before saying, “Look, I still have no idea what the hell is going on, but all this standing in a dark alleyway has given me time to think and I can’t think of any reason why you would be bothering to fly me halfway around the country if this was all some trick.

“If you really were behind the attack on the White House, there’d be no reason to go to all this trouble to keep me alive. And I know Lena. She loves my sister so, so much. There’s no way she would cheat on her, no matter what I saw. So I’m obviously missing something here.”

“You are,” Kara confirmed. “And I’d love explain it to you, but I can’t. Not like, I’m not supposed to tell you because it’s a secret, or I don’t want to tell you or something, but you literally won’t believe me if I try. But if you let Brainy use his machine...”

“I want to trust you, Supergirl,” Alex answered. “I really do. But just because I want to trust you doesn’t mean I trust you, or Brainy, enough to go into my brain.”

“I get it,” Kara answered. She knew it was asking a lot.

“How about we start with something smaller?” Alex suggested.

“Like what?”

Raising her still bound hands, Alex said, “Like how about you take these cuffs off. I saw you staring at that donut shop across the street. You can’t go in as Supergirl, but if you take these cuffs off, I can go and get us some donuts.”

“How do I know this isn’t another trick?” Kara asked. As much as she wanted to believe that Alex was starting to trust Supergirl her again, her sister had also fooled both Kara and then Brainy this evening and immediately signaled in a DEO strike team each time they had given her a chance.

“You still have my phone. And you’ll be just across the street the entire time,” Alex explained. “You can see and hear everything I do. You are fast enough that if I try to warn anyone or call for help, you can easily stop me.”

When Kara hesitated, Alex added, “Look. It’ll be a lot easier for me to trust you if you can prove you are willing to trust me first.”

Part of Kara was very suspicious that this was a trap. Even though she couldn’t think of any obvious way that her sister could use this as a chance to escape, or to signal the DEO for help, she knew better than to underestimate the woman. But ultimately, no matter how much the suspicious part of Kara protested, the prospect that maybe, just maybe, her sister was being sincere when she extended this olive branch was all that Kara needed to agree.

“Okay, I’ll trust you,” Kara said as she unlocked her sister’s handcuffs. “But just know that if this is a trick, I’m going to… well, I’m going to be even sadder than I was earlier. So then you’ll feel guilty again and we’ll both be miserable.”

“Thank you,” Alex said before giving her sister a small nod and heading across the street.

Even though Kara really, really wanted to believe her sister wasn’t going to try something, she still keep a very close watch on the woman as she crossed the street, entered the virtually deserted donut shop, placed an order with the cashier and began pointing at the donuts behind the counter that she wanted.

She could hear every word exchanged between Alex and the bored sounding employee so unless the donut shop was secretly a DEO front and they had some sort of code phrases they worked into ordering donuts, there was no sign of Alex doing anything other than what she said. Less than two minutes after entering the shop, her sister exited back out the shop carrying a box a donuts; she walked straight back to the alley where Kara had been hiding.

“Thank you,” Kara said as her sister handed her the box of donuts. “This means a lot to me.”

Kara eagerly flipped open the box, but her heart plummeted when she saw what inside. Instead of the dozen delectable treats she had been expecting, she saw that each and everyone of the donuts had coconut on them!

Still, Kara’s sister had trusted her enough to go and get her donuts. While Alex had been on the receiving end of many rants from Kara about the evils of coconut (second only to kale in things that can be used to ruin perfectly good food), that clearly wasn’t something she remembered about Supergirl her.

It meant a lot to Kara that her sister was willing to do this though, so she did her best to keep the horror out of her face as she reached down and picked out a donut that would have been a delicious chocolate glaze if not for the accursed coconut on it. She did her best to keep the grimace off her face as she took a big bite. “Yum…” she mumbled, as she fought the urge to spit the disgusting thing out.

“Oh wow, you must really want to prove yourself,” Alex said.

“What?” Kara said, struggling to swallow the donut.

“Everyone at the DEO knows how much you hate coconut, Supergirl,” Alex explained. “We’ve all seen you pout when there were only coconut donuts left in the breakroom.”  

Kara reacted by turning her head and immediately spitting the remaining donut out in a nearby dumpster. “Yech! So gross! Why would you let me eat that?”

“I may be starting to trust you again, but you did still kidnap me.” The DEO director leaned over, took the box back, and picked out a donut of her own. “Besides, I happen to love coconut donuts.” She punctuated the statement by chomping on the donut.

“Well, thanks for not trying to escape or anything,” Kara said, trying to focus on the positive and not dwell on how badly she wanted a donut. Especially now that she needed something to get the taste of coconut out of her mouth.

Alex finished her first donut and was halfway through her second before she pulled out a small paper bag. “Here,” she said, passing the bag to Kara.

Curious, but also a little cautious, Kara slowly opened the bag. “A strawberry jelly!” Kara shouted as she pulled her prize out of the bag, staring at it with reverence.

Kara grabbed her sister into a tight hug, pulling her off her feet. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“Hey, put me down,” Alex protested, trying to push the Kryptonian away with one arm. “You’re going to make me drop my donuts!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter originally ended in Sam's house, but thing between Kara and Alex got really angsty in the alley. I though it was a good scene but tonally it was too angsty for this story (and while the donut shop was still there, nobody actually got to go get any donuts). 
> 
> What's happened is obviously horrible for Kara so if she's left to dwell on it too long, the story could get really dark. But then when I was trying to lighten the scene up, I realized that having time to dwell on what happened could actually be a good thing for Alex and so here we get Alex starting to trust Kara again, if only a little bit.
> 
> Sam will appear next chapter for sure though!


	4. A Memory Found?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously on A Memory Missing:   
> Alex and Kara spent some time in an alley and eventually bonded over donuts.

Not long after Kara finished her jelly donut, Lena signalled, letting Kara know it was time to go back to Sam’s. Given that some measure of trust that had been rebuilt between them, Kara decided there was no need to restrain her sister. And so, after getting Alex’s permission, she flew the two of them back to Sam’s front step.

Walking up the stairs, Kara raised a fist to knock gently on the front door, but before she could do so, the door flew open. Kara tensed in alarm at the sudden movement, but fortunately the sudden movement was not the sign of an ambush, but of an excited teenager.

Ruby sprang out of the doorway and wrapped an arm around both of them, wedging herself between the two women. Kara and Alex returned the hug. Alex seemed a lot more comfortable hugging Ruby than she did when Kara had tried to hug her back in the alley.

“I missed you guys!” Ruby sighed. “Metropolis has been so boring!”

“I missed you too, Rubes,” Alex said softly.

“Yeah, me too,” Supergirl agreed. Ruby was the only one of the Superfriends that would sing along with Kara when they watched Disney movies.

“Okay, Ruby, you got to say hi,” Sam said as she appeared in the still open doorway. “Now back to bed, young lady. It’s after midnight and you’ve got school in the morning!”

Even to Kara, it was clear that Ruby wanted to protest, but she must have known it was a losing battle as she simply tightened her hug for a moment before letting Alex and Kara go. “Okay, mom. Goodnight, Aunt Alex, Aunt Ka–Supergirl,” Ruby said, stumbling a bit as she caught herself saying Kara’s name.

“Night, Ruby,” Alex said, ruffling the teen’s hair.

“We’re still on for Fortnight on Saturday, right?” the teen asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Alex agreed.

Seemingly satisfied, the young woman went back upstairs. Kara realized why the teen had given in to her mom’s demand so easily as with her super-hearing she could tell that Ruby actually stopped just as she rounded the corner at the top of the stairs. A quick glance with her x-ray vision confirmed that teen was knelt down, trying to listen in on what was happening. Kara couldn’t blame her; she’d have done the same if she were in her position.

With Ruby gone, Kara was totally left out of the hugging action as Sam wrapped Alex in an embrace, “It’s so good to see you in person,” Sam breathed.

“You too,” Alex answered softly, returning the hug just as tightly. If Kara had had any doubts about Lena’s arguments that Sam and Alex had feelings for each other, the way the two women gazed longingly into each other’s eyes as they spoke would have put those doubts to rest.

Once Sam and Alex broke the way-longer-than-a-normal-just-friends-hug, Kara spoke up, “Um, can we come in?”

Sam jumped slightly at her words, as if she had forgotten the hero was even there, “Oh, right. Please, come in.” The woman took a step back gesturing for them to enter.

Once they entered, Sam guided them to the living room where Lena and Brainy were already waiting. Sam and Alex sat together on Sam’s loveseat while Kara joined Brainy and Lena on the couch.

Once they were all situated, Sam turned to Alex, “I’m guessing you’re wondering why you had to come all this way in the middle of the night.”

“Supergirl said you had answers she couldn’t give me.”

“Lena filled me in on everything that happened tonight.”   
“Everything?” Alex said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, she told me what you walked in on,” Sam confirmed. “But it wasn’t what you think it was. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true.”

“I believe you,” Alex responded, before turning her head towards Lena. “I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier, Lena. I know how crazy you are about Kara. There’s no way you would just throw that away.”

“Thank you. That– that means a lot to me” Lena said, her voice threatening to break. Even though she’d been fully integrated into the Superfriends family for a couple years now, Lena still often struggled to accept that she had other people in her life that would stand by her, and not just Kara (even accepting that Kara would always stand by her had taken some time). Kara knew Alex’s earlier accusations had hurt her girlfriend. And that Alex’s apology and reassurances now would mean the world to Lena.

“I still don’t get what all this has to do with my sister though,” Alex said. “Why did Supergirl try to pretend she was Kara? I mean, they look nothing alike. Supergirl, why did you think that I would be that gullible? And more importantly why won’t anyone tell me where my sister is? I just want to know she’s okay.”

“Okay, most importantly,” Sam answered, “Your sister is fine. Well, she’s worried about you actually, but otherwise she’s fine. And I know this might be hard to believe,” Sam explained gently, “But you know where you sister is.”

“I don’t understand. Please, just tell me what’s going on,” Alex pleaded, the woman beginning to tear up.

“Oh, Alex,” Sam sighed, tearing up herself. She gathered the woman into another hug, rubbing her back for a few moments. When the hug ended, she continued. “I will tell you everything I can,” she reassured. “Believe me, I would love to tell you where Kara is right now. The problem is that if I tell you, you won’t understand.”

“What? Why wouldn’t I understand?” Alex asked, pain still in her voice. Kara grabbed on to Lena’s hand, squeezing as tight as she could safely squeeze, doing everything in her power from crossing the room and trying to soothe her sister. She wanted nothing more than to comfort her. But Alex and Supergirl didn’t have the soothe you when you are crying type relationship; it was all on Sam now.

“You see, your sister has a secret,” Sam explained. “A dangerous secret. And some very bad people were trying to find that secret. You were scared they might be able to use you to get to her. So you asked J’onn to make you forget. So you could keep your sister safe.”

“And did it work?” Alex asked. “Is she safe?” Because of course Alex’s first worry after finding out that her memory had been altered was making sure that her sister was okay.

“It worked. She’s safe,” Sam assured.

“Okay, good.” Alex sighed in relief, visibly relaxing a bit. “So I had to forget her secret. But you know it, right?” At Sam’s nod she continued. “And Lena and Supergirl must know it too. I’m guessing Brainy does as well. How come I had to have my memory erased when nobody else did?”

“I get it,” Sam responded. “How come the tech nerd, the CEO and the soccer mom get to keep their memories and the highly trained government agent doesn’t? All I can say right now is that there’s a very good explanation for that,” Sam responded. “I would say more but it turns out that when J’onn altered your memories, he put some sort of block in place so you wouldn’t just figure out your sister’s secret and be right back in the same situation all over again.

“From what Lena and Brainy told me, if I explain too much about what’s going on, you might run into that mental block. If that happens, it’ll mess with your ability to understand what’s happening. Your mind will concoct some alternate, false explanation instead.”

“Okay,” Alex answered.

“Okay?” Sam asked.

“I trust you,” Alex said, taking her friend’s hands in her own. “If you tell me that it’s dangerous to ask questions, then I believe you.”

“Even when I’m talking about crazy mind control conspiracies theories?” Sam asked.   
“Even then,” Alex said with a watery chuckle. “So what do we do now?”

“Brainy thinks he has a way to fix your memories.”

“The mind palace thing?”

“Yeah,” Sam nodded. “I’ll admit I don’t know much about it myself, but apparently he was able to use to help Supergirl after she… well, uh, after Reign put her in a coma.” Guilt crossed Sam’s features at the mention of Reign. Alex gave the woman a sad smile and gave her hands a reassuring squeeze.

“Brainy and Lena brought everything they need to help you with them,” Sam explained. “So if you’re willing to try, he thinks he can restore your memories.”

“And that won’t put Kara in danger?” Alex asked.

“No,” Sam reassured. “I can’t explain why it’s different now because…”

“Got it. Answering questions might break my brain,” Alex nodded. “Okay, I’m in.”

Now that Alex had consented to the procedure, Brainy and Lena quickly rigged up the tech they would need while Brainy explained the process. Alex had a few questions about the technical details but stayed away from asking any further questions about why they were in this situation in the first place.

After agreeing to have Brainy help her, Alex had seemed focused on her objective, fixing her mind. But the closer they got to the start of the process, the more nervous she seemed. Of course, Alex hid her fear under her professional DEO agent persona, but Kara could tell when her sister was worried, no matter how much she might try to hide it. Kara knew she couldn’t do anything to calm her sister, but fortunately, Kara wasn’t the only one to notice that Alex was only pretending not to be worried about the procedure.

Sam gently placed her hands on Alex’s shoulders, “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. I’ll be right here, holding your hand the entire time. And if you’re good, I’ll even give you a lollipop when you’re finished.”

Part of Kara wanted to ask if she could have a lollipop too, but another part of her realized that Sam was definitely flirting with her sister right now and Kara was not going to get in the middle of that, thank you very much. Besides, she could always find the lollipops later.

Whether it was the flirting, the reassurance, or both, Alex instantly started to calm down, even giving Sam a small smirk in response to her lollipop statement.

Seemingly at least a bit calmer, Alex gingerly sat in the easy chair that Brainy and Lena had converted into a makeshift mind/body interface device. True to her word, Sam sat at Alex’s side, holding the woman’s hand as Brainy started the process to enter the DEO Director’s mind.

Before beginning the process, Brainy had warned that it would likely take many hours to work around the powerful Martian mental blocks, so Kara took a blanket from the back of the couch and curled up with Lena, knowing that as long as the day had been so far, they still had a long night ahead of them.

Or at least, that’s what everyone had been expecting. In actuality, a little less than ten minutes after Brainy had started the process, Alex shot up in her chair, gasping. Her eyes locked on Kara’s and then the woman leapt out of the chair, leaving a mess of wires and electrodes behind as she ran across the room. The only thing she didn’t dislodge in her frantic dash was Sam. Somehow she managed to keep her hand clasped with her friend’s and so a surprised looking Sam was dragged across the room too.

“Kara!” Alex shouted. Alex threw herself on top of Kara, wrapping her free arm around the hero before Kara could even start getting up off the couch. Sam, not really having much choice in the matter, ended up falling on to the couch, being wedged between Lena and Kara in the process.

“Alex?” Kara asked, hope in her voice. “You remember? You know that I’m me?”

“I remember,” Alex nodded, tears running down her face as she burrowed further into her sister’s embrace, voice cracking. “I remember everything.”

“Never do that again,” Kara pleaded. “I missed you so much!”

“Never,” Alex agreed.

What started as a hug between Kara and Alex soon grew into a group hug between Kara, Alex, Lena and Sam. Which wasn’t the easiest thing to do when piled together on a couch. It grew even more cumbersome a moment later when Ruby emerged from her hiding space and joined in the group hug, but they made it work.

The next several minutes on the couch were a dogpile of hugs, tears, apologies, thank yous and reassurances between the women, while Brainy stood awkwardly off to one side (though he awkwardly received his own share of hugs once everyone managed to work their way off the couch).

Brainy also explained why it had ended up being so easy for Alex to regain her memories once Brainy linked with her mind. “From what I can gather, Alex’s mind had been fighting the block from the very first moment it was in place. Her memories of you are so integral to who Alex is as a human being that it only took the slightest of prods to break down the walls that were sealing off her memories.”

“Of course,” Alex had answered. “Do you know how much of my average day is devoted to babysitting this one?” Alex teased, pointing a finger at her sister.

It was nearly 2 AM in Metropolis (which made it 4 AM National City time) at this point so when Sam invited them to spend the night, nobody even thought of objecting. Kara and Lena took the guest bedroom while Brainy volunteered to sleep on the couch. Lena shot Kara a knowing look when Sam offered to share her bed with Alex.

A few minutes later, changed out of her supersuit and into some borrowed sleepwear, Kara cuddled Lena in her arms, feeling safe and happy. Sure, Lex Luthor was still on the loose, the Children of Liberty were still somehow growing in popularity and she had been framed for murder, but her sister was back, she was in a house surrounded by people who would always have her back and cuddled up in bed with her girlfriend. She could worry about all that other stuff in the morning.

“I want to thank you for being so amazing with this whole Alex situation,” Kara whispered to her girlfriend. “Not that you are not always amazing, but these last few months, with Alex not knowing the whole me, have been so tough. And then tonight when I couldn’t even be Kara Danvers with Alex… I don’t know how I would have managed to keep it together without you by my side.”

“I’m here whenever you need me,” Lena answered, giving the other woman a soft kiss.

“So always then?”

“Always,” Lena answered.  

“Good,” Kara said, snuggling in closer to her girlfriend. “You may not have superpowers, but you, Lena Luthor, will always be my hero.”

It was a nice moment. A very nice moment. It would have been a great way to end the day and finally get some sleep. And that’s what would have happened if not for what Kara heard just a few seconds later. Instead of drifting to sleep, the hero shot out of bed.

Lena looked over, confused and alarmed. “Kara, sweetie, what’s wrong?”

“I was just thinking it would be nice if we got a hotel room for the night,” Kara said, already gathering her things.

“What? Why? We’re perfectly safe here, babe.”

“I know, but, um, well, yeah,” Kara stammered. “Well, it turns out that your were wrong about Alex and Sam.”

“Seriously? Did you not see how they were around each other tonight? Trust me, Kara,” Lena assured, “It’s only a matter of time. Those two are definitely into each other.”

“Oh, they are into each other all right,” Kara sighed. “That’s why I think we really should go get a hotel room.”

“Darling you aren’t making any… oh! Oh!” Lena laughed, realization dawning on her face.

“Yeah, oh,” Kara responded. “And I would very much like to find a hotel, preferably on the other side of the city. Sometimes having super hearing isn’t so great.”

“Right,” Lena said, finally getting out of bed herself.

Fifteen minutes later, Lena and Kara were safely checked into a hotel clear across town, snuggled up in a different bed.

“Better, darling?” Lena asked.

“Much better,” Kara said with a sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is fixed now! Yay! I mean, Kara's a little traumatized, but all and all, a pretty happy chapter for everyone. 
> 
> This story should be wrapping things up next chapter. This was actually originally planned to be a one-shot of no more than a couple thousand words, but my stories kind of have a habit of ballooning on me.


	5. We're Having a Party!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously on _A Memory Missing_ :  
> Alex got her memories back and Kara found out that Alex and Sam were more than friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this last chapter took me so long. If it helps, it's the longest chapter by far. Almost 6000 words of pretty much pure fluff!

A little over four weeks later, Kara was hosting what she hoped would be her biggest celebratory party yet. Well, it wasn’t her party. Not really. It was for everyone. It was only hers in the sense that she was the one organizing it and it was being held at the penthouse she and Lena shared. There were so many things to celebrate that one party almost seemed insufficient. 

It was a party to celebrate defeating Lex Luthor. Between Kara, Lena, Alex, a newly reformed Red Daughter and the rest of the Superfriends, not even Lex had stood a chance. And now they would never need to worry about him again. 

After his original imprisonment, Lex had proved that just locking him up again would be entirely ineffective at actually containing him.  J’onn was able to put his Martian mind powers to better use and now the supervillain was imprisoned in his own mind in addition to being physically imprisoned on Argo, far away from anyone who might want to try to rescue him. 

It was also a going away party for Red Daughter, or Linda Lee as she had chosen to call herself. Kara’s new clone sister had done horrible things and neither the public nor the US government would accept her were she to remain on Earth. But Linda’s crimes had all been on account of her missing memory and Lex’s systematic manipulation. Not to mention she had played a pivotal role in stopping his mad schemes. Now that she was free of his influence, the woman was quickly growing into her own person. And she would get that chance living in Argo City. 

It was also a ‘Congrats on finally getting together’ party for not one but two couples in their friend circle. The morning after that traumatizing night when Kara had found out about Sam and Alex with her own two ears the women had confessed that they had been having a long distance relationship in secret for a couple of months. 

They may have been together for months already, but Kara still thought it was worthy of celebration. And Nia and Brainy had finally gotten together just a few days earlier, so that needed to be celebrated too. 

The party was also serving as a ‘Welcome back to National City’ party for not only Sam and Ruby, but Lucy as well. Lucy had surprised everyone by turning up in National City a few days earlier, returning from a covert mission with the Justice Department just in time to expose some corrupt government officials and help defeat Lex Luthor. 

But it wasn’t just a welcome back party, it was also a ‘Welcome to National City’ party for Kelly, who had decided to move to National City for good. With Kelly and James previously somewhat estranged relationship now patched up, the siblings understandably wanted to spend more time together, getting to really know each other for the first time since they were kids. And with the way Lucy and Kelly had been flirting from the moment they met, Kara thought she may be hosting a ‘Congrats on getting together’ party for those two in the not-too-distant future. 

As if those weren’t enough reasons to have a party, they were also celebrating James successful recovery after the whole being shot and suffering life threatening side effects from Harun-El thing. It had been a rough couple of months for James, but Lena had managed to remove the Harun-El from his system and he had made a complete recovery. 

Alex and Lena had also insisted the party be used to celebrate Supergirl being officially exonerated of any crimes and once more embraced by the people of the city and the world. Kara felt kind of guilty for stealing any of the focus away from all the other amazing milestones and celebrations honoring her friends, but she had to admit, it was wonderful to have people’s faith in Supergirl restored. 

With so much to celebrate that a single party hardly seemed adequate. If Kara had her way, they’d all be about to kick off a month-long vacation right now. Unfortunately between many of them having two jobs and pretty much all of them being on call in one way or another 24/7, there was just no way they would all be able to be free at once for that long of a period (managing to get everyone’s schedules to line-up for just this one day was something of a minor miracle in and of itself). Kara was determined to make the most of the time they did have. 

Kara had booked a couple days off at CatCo and had gone all in on decorating the apartment. She was particularly happy with the custom-made banners for each and every accomplishment and event they were celebrating, recreating pivotal moments in their lives in comic figure form on each banner. She even ended making a few extra banners just to make sure that every one of the Superfriends was adequately celebrated in banner form regardless of whether they had any recent milestones or not. Even with a penthouse as large as theirs, the walls were looking a bit crowded with the sheer number of banners adorning them. 

A knock at the door signalled the first arrivals and the official start of the party. Kara smiled when she opened the door to find her sisters, Alex and Linda. 

Since defeating Lex, they had mainly kept Linda hidden away at the DEO. Even there, they had needed to take steps to disguise her appearance lest any of the other DEO agents realize they were harboring Supergirl’s supposedly evil double. Linda had chosen to die her hair black and had gotten a new haircut (one suspiciously similar to the one that Alex sported) and they used an image inducer to fully complete her disguise. Everyone that was going to be at the party knew the truth though, so the image inducer was not necessary today. 

Kara greeted her sisters with a pair of enthusiastic hugs. Alex always gave great hugs, but Linda’s hugs had quickly grown to be among Kara’s favorites as well. It was nice to have someone other than Kal that she could hug as tightly as she wanted without fear of injury. 

“Hey, Linds,” Kara greeted. 

“Linds?” Linda asked, furrowing her brow. 

“It’s a nickname,” Kara explained. “When you care about someone, sometimes you use another name for them. A lot of times it’ll be a variation on their normal name. So, like sometimes people will call me ‘Kar’ or they’ll call Alex ‘Lexie.’” 

“Nobody ever calls me that!” Alex protested, wagging a finger at her sister. 

“Lexie…” Linda said slowly, as if considering the name. “I like it.” 

“Okay, Linda, you can call me Lexie,” Alex relented. “But only you!” the woman added shooting a harsh glare at Kara. Kara knew for a fact that Alex hated being called Lexie; she had only brought it up in the first place to tease the woman. But it was becoming clear that Alex had an even harder time saying no to their new sister than she did to Kara. 

It warmed Kara’s heart to see how quickly Alex had adopted Linda into their family. It was too bad the other woman was going to have to leave, but thankfully Argo City was only a quick transmatter trip away; they would certainly be seeing a lot more Linda in the future.

Before too long, the rest of the guests arrived in ones, twos and threes and the party was in full swing. Kara was making a round to see if anyone needed any refills of their drinks when she saw Lucy had gathered a crowd around the TV, trying to play a video from her phone. She had a feeling she knew what the woman was about to do and Kara knew she had to get over there right away. 

“Lucy, that better not be what I think it is!” Kara huffed. 

“I just thought everyone might like to see your superhero anniversary video,” Lucy answered, a sly grin on her face giving away she knew exactly what Kara felt about her video.

“No!” Kara protested. “It’s so embarrassing!” She could feel herself starting to blush even though the video had yet to start. 

“You’re going to play ‘Supergirl’s Superhero Slip-Ups’?” Alex asked excitedly, having apparently followed the commotion. 

“Supergirl’s Superhero Slip-Ups?” Nia asked.

Lucy was only too happy to explain. “Between smartphones, security cameras and DEO satellites, a lot of what Supergirl does ends up being recorded. So, in honor of her first anniversary of coming out as Supergirl, Alex, Vasquez and I put together a little video celebrating some highlights.” 

Lena looked like a kid on Christmas morning. “How have I never seen this before?” 

“That’s because Lucy promised she would never play it again! And that she had deleted all the copies of the video!” Kara pouted. 

“I may have kept one copy,” Lucy teased. “You know, just in case.” 

“You do realize I can grab your phone faster than you can play the video to the TV, right?” Kara threatened, watching Lucy’s hand for any sign of movement.  

“But darling, I really want to see your early days as Supergirl. I missed out on the whole first year!” Lena countered. And oh, Rao, Lena was pouting! That was her thing! So not fair. 

“Fine, let’s just get it over with,” Kara sighed as cheers rang out through the room. 

Despite her embarrassment, Kara couldn’t help but join in the laughter as for the next four minutes and thirty-five seconds, as a compilation of many of her less than heroic moments played on the 70-inch screen. A lot of them were from her first month or so, when she was still getting a handle on using her powers on a larger scale and was more prone to screwing things up. After that, it was mostly just Kara getting covered in slime, alien goo and various other nasty substances. And that time she had gone a whole afternoon without anyone telling her she had wing sauce on her face. The video culminated in the time Kara managed to accidentally fly through not one, not two, but three billboards, all captured in glorious HD by a city traffic cam. As everyone cheered and applauded the end of the video, Kara gave a sheepish little bow. 

“How did you manage to fly through three billboards, love?” A chuckling Lena asked. 

“Well, I was a little distracted,” Kara admitted. “It was, well, it was actually just shortly after we met. You had said you hoped it wasn’t the last time we talked, and I was just thinking about how nice you were and I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was flying and…” 

“You flew into three billboards because I was nice?” 

“Oh, Lena. Kara was so gay for you right from the start,” Alex teased. “Every day it was all ‘Lena is so smart,’ ‘Gosh, Lena was so pretty today,’ ‘Do you think Lena would come to game night if I asked her?’” 

“Really?” Lena asked, smiling wide. 

“To be fair, she’s still like that,” Sam piled on. “Just yesterday, Kara went on a two minute ramble about how good Lena’s hair smells.” 

“It’s not my fault my girlfriend is amazing!” Kara defended. 

“Let me tell you, Lena,” Alex added, “Those first few months of hearing Kara gush over how great you were rough. How can someone be that into someone and have no idea?” 

“To be fair,” Lena countered, “I seem to remember a certain Danvers sister that was doing an awful lot of oblivious pining over my COO not all that long ago.” 

Sam leaned over and gave her girlfriend a kiss on the cheek, “I think things worked out pretty well, all things considered.” 

With the video over, everyone eventually began to break back into little groups. Lena, Winn, James and Ruby started playing Mario Kart, Alex was teaching Kelly, Brainy and Linda the rules to some card game, Nia and J’onn were talking shop, discussing the best ways to rescue someone from a burning building. 

Sam had excused herself to the kitchen to get some more snacks for everyone and Kara took the opportunity to approach the woman. “Need any help there?”

“Jesus!” Sam jumped at Kara’s words and would have dropped the tray she was holding were it not for Kara speeding across the room to steady it. 

“Whoa, sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” Kara said. 

“Uh, no, it’s… it’s fine,” Sam reassured, but Kara could hear the other woman’s heartbeat pounding rapidly. 

“Are you okay, Sam?” 

“I’m fine,” Sam reassured though her heartbeat hadn’t slowed. “This is where you threaten me, right?” 

Kara scrunched her face in confusion, “Threaten you? Why would I threaten you?” 

“I’m dating your sister,” Sam explained. 

“Right…” Kara said slowly, not understanding what that had to do with anything. 

“I know I haven’t dated much since Ruby was born, but as Alex’s sister, aren’t you supposed to threaten me with bodily harm if I do anything to hurt Alex? You know, the whole ‘shovel talk’ thing? Gotta say, it’s a lot scarier of an idea when the threats are coming from someone who could literally rip you in half.” 

“No threats!” Kara protested, holding her hands up in a placating fashion. “I know how much you care about Alex. And I know you’d would never do anything to hurt her intentionally. But I also know that sometimes, even when people love each other, it just doesn’t work out,” Kara explained, thinking back to how things had ended up Alex and Maggie. 

“None of us know the future,” Kara added. “Well, I guess Brainy does. But he doesn’t really like to tell us anything. Sorry, that’s beside the point,” Kara said, forcing herself back on track. “What I mean is you are part of this family. I have a feeling that you and Alex will work out. But even if things don’t work out, you’re still going to be part of this family. I’m afraid you’re stuck with us.” 

Sam laughed though Kara could see that the woman had teared up a bit at Kara’s speech. “So you didn’t corner me to threaten to throw me into outer space if I hurt your sister?”

“Nope,” Kara confirmed. “I, uh, I actually had something else I wanted to talk to you about though. I’m not sure if Lena told you, but we have a transmat portal set up to Argo City now. My mom’s still living there, and Linda is going to be there too, so Alex and I will be visiting a lot.”

Kara hesitated for a moment before continuing, “I know biologically you are fully human now, but you are still a Kryptonian, no matter how that came about. And I thought you might like to experience some of the more positive aspects of your heritage. Ruby’s welcome to come too, of course.” 

When Sam didn’t answer immediately, Kara hastened to add, “I know you might not want to dwell on your past, with the whole you were used as a host for a Worldkiller thing, so there’s no pressure. I just wanted to let you know the option is there.” 

“If you had asked me a few months ago, I probably would have freaked out at the idea. After Reign, I just wanted to pretend the whole thing never happened. That I was and always had been 100% human. But Alex and I have talked a lot about what happened. And I’ve been seeing a DEO therapist and it’s really helped. I don’t think you can ever completely get over being used as a killing machine, but I’ve been making my peace with it. I think I am in a place where I’m ready to learn more about my heritage.” 

“Yeah?” Kara asked, a hopeful smile on her face.

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “I know Ruby has questions too. It’s not every day that you learn that you’re half-alien.” 

“Well, you are both welcome to come with us to Argo City at any time. And if you or Ruby ever have questions about Krypton or what it’s like living as an alien on Earth or anything like that, I’m happy to answer any questions you have. Oh, and you both definitely need to take a trip with me to see the Fortress of Solitude at some point!” Kara said, getting excited at the idea. In spite of the name, she loved taking her friends to the Fortress whenever possible.

Sam just laughed, “Let’s start off with a planning a trip to Argo City and then we’ll go from there, okay?”

Sam’s response didn’t deter Kara in the slightest and she wrapped her friend in a big hug, lifting the other woman off the ground. “Awesome!”

A couple hours later, everyone was gathered around the table finishing up on the impressively large, even by Kara’s standards, quantities of Chinese and pizza that had been ordered. Once she was satisfied that everyone had eaten their fill, and before anyone could start splintering off into little groups again, Kara used a bit of super-speed to retrieve a package she had hidden away in Lena’s closet.

Appearing back in front of the group, now clutching a large cardboard box in front of her, Kara spoke up, “I know the last few months have been really tough on us all, but we made it. I’m so proud of you and I love each and every person at this table.”

“To the Superfriends!” James shouted, raising his glass. 

“The Superfriends!” Everyone answered, raising their own glasses. 

“It’s been two years and I still can’t believe Winn managed to get us to call ourselves that,” Alex muttered, though she was shaking her head fondly. 

Once the cheering had died down, Kara continued. “I got a little something for everyone.” Kara explained as she tore open the cardboard box and began handing out neatly wrapped rectangular boxes to each person seated at the table.

Everyone eagerly tore open their gifts, but the excitement was replaced mostly with looks of confusion as they found the boxes contained nothing but a thick stack of papers. Lena was first to break the silence. “Babe, what is this?” she asked as she started scanning the top page.

“Oh, just a little binding legal agreement.” 

“What?” Alex shouted. 

Kara walked over to her sister, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Alex, what you did for me was so amazing. You gave up a huge chunk of yourself so I could keep my identity a secret. I can never, ever thank you enough for what you did. That being said, giving up your memories was a terrible idea. I never want to have to hide myself from you, or anyone else in this room, ever again.” 

Kara tapped the stack of papers sitting in front of her sister, “Which brings me to these contracts. In front of you, each of you have a contract stipulating that a list of unacceptable trade-offs for protecting my identity. It’s kind of a long list so I’ll let you read it at your leisure, but highlights include no agreeing to have your memory erased, no letting a supervillain blackmail you in exchange for keeping my secret and most importantly, no getting yourself injured or killed just to keep my secret.” 

Kara held out her own copy of the contract. “I’m lucky to have such selfless friends, but that also means I know you’ll have a ton of objections. If you’ll flip to Appendix B—” Kara flipped her own copy to show them “—-you’ll find a list of likely objections as well as detailed counterarguments to each one. Bottom line, there are always better alternatives to erasing your memory.” 

“Let me guess,” Nia piped up, “Those are in Appendix C?” 

“Actually, that’s Appendix E. It’s got a list of other ways to deal with a threat to my identity in 157 different possible situations where it might come. In some of those cases, the best option is to let my secret be revealed. My secret is important, yes, but it isn’t more important than my family. And that’s all of you.” 

Lena flipped through the thick document. “This is surprisingly thorough.” 

“Lucy made it for me,” Kara explained, nodding her head at her friend, the only person who hadn’t been surprised at the contract. 

“I’ve been working on that baby for months now. Kara called me up a couple days after Alex’s memory was wiped. She was a mess; she asked me to create a contract to protect you. You hero-types are always so eager to sacrifice yourselves for your friends that sometimes you forget there are better ways.” 

“Yeah, cause you’ve never done that, Luce,” Alex snarked. “Though I wouldn’t mind if you could make one of these for Kara. She’s more leap before you look than any of us.”

“Already on it,” Lucy joked. 

“You realize these are basically unenforceable, right?” Lena asked. 

“Yeah,” Kara admitted. She and Lucy had realized that trying to build in any sort of punishment for breaking the contract was silly. “Obviously I would never actually sue anyone so we didn’t think it mattered if they were enforceable. This is more about spelling out what keeping my secret is worth to me. And what it isn’t worth. I’m not saying you can’t help me; I’m not saying you can’t risk your life to try and make this city a better place if that’s what you want to do. I’m just saying we’re a pretty heroic and self-sacrificing bunch, but some sacrifices aren’t worth making. I want us all to be as safe as possible.”

Kara jumped up, snapping her fingers. “I almost forgot the best part! I got you all another gift too!”

“Ooh, are we get subpoenas too?” Sam joked. 

“This one is more fun,” Kara promised, as she pulled out a second set of smaller wrapped packages from the now empty cardboard box. 

Despite her promise, everyone seemed a little less excited as they opened their second gift. Though that soon changed as Ruby was the first to realize what was in the new boxes. “You got us Supergirl watches?”

“I did,” Kara confirmed. “I know some of you already have Supergirl watches, but these ones are new and improved.” 

“Did Lena pay for these?” Alex asked. “I didn’t see anything in the budget about new Supergirl watches.”

“Actually, my friend Felicity helped me with these ones,” Kara volunteered. “So these are technically Smoak Industries watches.” 

At this news, Lena asked, “You went to all the way to another Earth to get new Supergirl watches instead of asking me for help?” 

“Well,” Kara stammered, the hurt look on her girlfriend’s face making Kara wonder if she should have gone with a different plan. “It— It was supposed to be a surprise. And it wouldn’t really be a surprise if I asked you to build the new watches. I mean, of course you could have built good watches. Great watches even! If you want you can make us some new watches. Felicity gave me a thumb drive with the source code so you can make whatever changes you wish.” 

The hurt look on Lena’s face gave way to laughter. “Sorry, I’m just teasing you, darling. I know how much you love your surprises,” Lena responded, leaning forward and giving Kara a quick kiss on the cheek. “Though if you’re offering I wouldn’t mind taking a look at that source code later.” 

“Felicity told me she used a modified version of a program she built called Oracle as the operating system. They watches connect to your smartphone and they have a built-in secure comms thing so we can have group chats and video calls and all that stuff without having to worry about anyone else having access. You can also contact Earth-1 with these. They won’t be able to connect to Argo City yet, but Felicity said it should be possible to configure the signals to work with the trans-matter portal and once we do that, it will. And most importantly, the watches can track your location at all times and they have all sorts of biometrics and built-in alerts in case of trouble. The original Supergirl watches worked well enough, but I figured it was time to take things up a notch. Hopefully we can cut down on all the kidnappings and murder attempts.” 

There were a few objections from the gang about wearing a watch that was constantly monitoring them. The contract was non-binding so everyone had agreed to sign that easily enough. But when it came to carrying around a device capable of tracking and recording everything, there were some privacy concerns which Kara did her best to allay. Felicity had apparently dealt with similar concerns with Team Arrow and the original software so she had provided Kara with a helpful list of talking points.  

Lena was the hardest sell; she had been understandably wary about an unknown device having unfettered access to her life and the L-Corp network. But between the fact she could see the source code and a promise to put her in touch with Felicity to answer any questions she might have (plus a bit of a pout from Kara) and the CEO caved. The important thing was that they would all be just a little bit safer now. 

With the contracts signed and the watches distributed, Kara had assumed that everyone would start breaking back up into little groups again. She herself was thinking about setting up the karaoke machine, already debating which song she would sing first, but as she started to rise from the table, Lena placed a hand on her shoulder. “I have something for you too, darling. And now seems like the perfect time.” 

Kara’s heart rate spiked. She hadn’t forgotten Alex’s slip-up about ring shopping with Lena during the whole Alex thought Lena was having an affair with Supergirl debacle. She knew it wasn’t fair to Lena for her to have found out that way, so for the past 32 days, 18 hours and 23 minutes Kara had done her best to pretend she had never heard it; given how much they were both freaking out at the time, she wasn’t even sure that Lena had realized what Alex had given away. 

Between clearing Supergirl’s name, winning Linda’s trust, stopping Lex Luthor and the Children of Liberty and exposing everyone that had been working with him, it wasn’t like there had been a lot of great proposal opportunities over the past few weeks. Still, every time Lena said anything that might possibly be a precursor to a proposal saw Kara’s heart rate jump through the roof. This was probably the first realistic opportunity that had come along in all that time. Could this finally be the day Lena popped the question? 

With a start, Kara realized that she had been so wrapped up in own head, getting excited thinking about how Lena might be about to propose that to her that she had completely zoned out for a second. She was further shocked to realize that not only had Lena continued speaking, but her girlfriend was now holding a ring. 

“Oh Rao, yes!” Kara whooped, gathering her girlfriend in her arms and giving the woman a passionate kiss. 

Lena laughed, “If I had known you wanted a ring for your suit that badly, I would have made you one months ago!” 

“Huh?” 

“You aren’t the only one that can work with people on Earth-1, you know” Lena teased. “You were going on and on about how cool it was that Barry could fit his suit in his ring so I spoke with your friend Cisco and he was happy to send over the specs. I had a few hours free in the lab this afternoon so I was able to whip up a replica to store your supersuit.” 

Oh. That probably explained why the ring was just a simple band. Not that Kara had cared when she thought it was an engagement ring. She would have proudly worn a Ring Pop if it meant she and Lena were engaged. 

Kara was disappointed that she was still going to have to keep pretending that she had no idea that Lena was planning to propose, but that disappointment was quickly replaced by gratitude for her amazing girlfriend. Even with everything they had been through over the past few months, the first free day Lena had, she was still going out of her way to do things just to make Kara happy. She realized she would gladly wait a thousand years for a proposal as long as she had Lena at her side. 

“Can I try it on?” Kara asked. 

Kara had been expecting to put the ring on herself, but, before she could, Lena took hold of Kara’s hand and gently slid the ring on to Kara’s index finger. Not the finger she had been expecting a moment ago, but she appreciated the gesture nevertheless. 

“This is amazing!” Kara brought her hand up to her face, looking at the ring. At a distance the ring had looked like a perfectly smooth band, but she could see a tiny indent along the edge that might be the trigger and a small panel that must be where the suit deployed from. “How are you able to fit a whole suit in such a small space?”

“It’s actually a little bit like the TARDIS,” Lena explained, referencing the time-travel device from Doctor Who. “On the outside, it’s just the size of a normal ring, but on the inside, it’s actually 0.8 cubic metres. The tricky part was making it so that you can put larger things in the ring and then take them back out again. The actual hole that opens up is less than .2 millimetres in diameter so I had to incorporate portal technology.” 

“And you built this in an afternoon?” Kara gawked. 

“Well, I had Cisco’s plans to work with,” Lena shrugged, as if breaking the laws of reality was a minor feat. “Would you like to see how it works?” 

“Yes, please!” Kara answered, nodding eagerly. Not having to wear her suit or stash it nearby was going to make her life so much easier. No more having to worry about her suit peeking out of her outfits or limiting her fashion choices. 

Lena leaned over and took Kara’s hand again, carefully turning the ring as she pointed to the same groove Kara had spotted. “You just have to push in on this little groove and then rotate the ring 90 degrees,” Lena explained, making the movement as she explained. There was a soft click, a flash of light and then suddenly Lena there was a tiny portal hovering above the ring, maybe a foot-wide. Lena reached inside the portal, but instead of pulling out one of Kara’s supersuits, she pulled out… a bracelet? 

Kara’s eyes widened as she gazed at the bracelet that was now being held out to her. She wasn’t sure what it was made from, but it was silver in color and in-laid with intricate patterns, a pattern of blue and green intermingling. 

“Kara Zor-El Danvers, will you marry me?” Lena asked. 

“Finally!” Kara cried, her enthusiasm from earlier back tenfold. She grabbed the other woman, wrapping her in as tight a hug as she dared, lifting both of them a couple of feet off the ground in the process. 

“So that’s a yes?” Lena asked, in a tone that was going for teasing but held just a hint of insecurity.

“Of course, it’s a yes! Oh, Rao, I’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks now!” 

Lena chuckled, “I know, darling. I heard what Alex said too. It was for the best though since someone didn’t think to tell me that Kryptonians usually exchange bracelets rather than rings. Thankfully once Alex got her memory back, she was able to bring me up to speed on that particular Kryptonian custom.” 

“I was just excited about the proposal idea,” Kara admitted. Honestly as much as she loved the bracelet, and the fact that Lena wanted to honor her Kryptonian traditions, she would have been just as happy with a ring. In the end, it was just a symbol. The important thing was that Lena had proposed. 

“I figured it was the least I could do after ruining your proposal in the first place.” 

“Alex, we’ve been over this,” Lena answered, the roll of her eyes making it clear this was far from the first time they’d had this conversation. “There were extenuating circumstances. Nobody blames you. I was going to wait until we had caught Lex to propose anyway. All your reveal did was cause Kara to freak out every time I asked her a question the last few weeks.”

“I wasn’t that bad!” 

“The other day you nearly burst into tears when I asked you to get me a bagel,” Lena teased. 

“You asked it in a really romantic way!” Kara defended. “I totally thought you were going to propose!”

Lena just laughed. 

“I still feel bad about it,” Alex admitted. 

Kara wasn’t going to stand for having her sister beating herself up on this most special day. “Hey, Lena’s right. You did nothing wrong. I love you for trying to defend my honor.” Kara followed her words with a hug.  

Turning to address her little family, Kara said, “I think this calls for a toast. Everyone’s safe, we beat Lex Luthor and exposed a bunch of bigots, we’re all together, new friends and old, I got a cool new ring for my suit and I’m engaged to the most wonderful woman in the multiverse. This is the best day ever. Even better than that day they had 3 for 1 cinnamon buns at Noonan’s!”

“Here, here,” the group answered, everyone hastily grabbing their glasses to clink together.

“I’m glad to know we could top such a momentous occasion!” Lena laughed, before pulling Kara into a celebratory kiss. 

As she felt herself melting into the kiss, a part of Kara wanted nothing more than take Lena to the bedroom right now so she and Lena could have their own private celebration. The night would wrap up soon enough though, and it was so rare that so many of her family could have an evening like this. There would be plenty of time to show Lena just how happy she was once everyone left.

“Okay, gang,” Kara called, an arm still wrapped around Lena. “Now that we’ve established this is the best day ever, I think it’s group hug time!” 

On any ordinary night, Alex would have made a show of protesting against a group hug, in a vain attempt to convince everyone she wasn’t a secret softie, but tonight her sister was the first to join Kara and Lena in the hug, sliding under Kara’s free arm. “I’m really happy for you, Kar,” she breathed softly. 

Within moments, they were all sandwiched together in a group hug. Sam had joined on Alex’s other side; Linda, facing Kara and Alex, had her arms around both of them. It was a little awkward having this many people in a hug, but eventually everyone found their place. Even J’onn, who had a habit of mysteriously disappearing whenever someone started talking about a group hug, had joined in. 

As Kara had her sister on one side of her, her new sister in front of her, her fiance (Lena was her fiance now!) on the other and almost all the other important people in her life piled together, Kara knew she was right, this was definitely the best day ever.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't really planned to have Red Daughter in this chapter, but when I started thinking about how the end of season 4 would play out differently if Alex got her memories back sooner and Kara, Lena and Alex were all 100% on the same page, I figured they would be able to get through to Red Daughter sooner. I knew I wanted to send her to Argo City, but then I figured she should stick around long enough to join the party.
> 
> Even though she and Alex aren't together in this story, I wanted to keep Kelly around. I also wanted Lucy to write up Kara's contract and so then I figured let's bring her in to the party too. And then when I was writing, I was thinking that those two characters would probably really hit it off, so even though it's only briefly mentioned here, in my personal headcanon for this story, those two definitely start dating sometime after the story ends. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this story!


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